Shadow of a Man
by Rhanon Brodie
Summary: It had all started when he'd been shot in the chest, a blooming burn of pain and twisted flesh, and torn muscle. And then he'd woken up weeks later to a whole new world. A world where, he is slowly realizing, Rick Grimes doesn't necessarily belong in. M for swear words, blood, and guns.


_A/N: I have a fixation on the characters of Rick and Carl Grimes, but I never seem to be able to churn out more than one shots for either of them. This piece was actually supposed to be the first chapter of a much longer, Dark!Rick fic, but life happens, and sometimes I don't get to do all that I set out to do. This was written immediately following the mid-season hiatus, and I thought that in honor of the return of the season tomorrow night, I'd post this as a one shot. It's clearly unfinished, but sometimes you have to leave things the way they are. And I wanted to share. I still hope to write a Rick-centric multi chapter fic, and a Carl-centric future fic. We'll see what happens. Reviews aren't necessary, but they're great to receive, so please leave your contribution in the little box at the bottom._

_Many thanks to incog_ninja and Valerie E Mackin for giving this the initial read through._

* * *

There is a flurry of movement and Rick lets Carl push him back against the tree they've paused near. And Rick _knows_ he's bleeding; he can feel the warm trickle of blood, combined with the telltale ache of a bullet wound. Oh yes, he knows he's been shot. That's how this all started, when he thinks right back to the beginning: he'd been shot in the chest, a blooming burn of pain and twisted flesh, and torn muscle. And then he'd woken up weeks later to a whole new world.

A world where, he is slowly realizing, Rick Grimes doesn't necessarily belong in.

He brushes aside Carl's searching hands with a shake of head. "It's fine. I'm fine." He forces himself to stand tall again and nods into the trees. "Keep moving."

The gunfire at the prison can still be heard, and it roars in his head with heat and terror and the gut wrenching realization that Hershel is dead.

He wasn't even _bitten_.

He'd had his head cut off by the goddamn _Governor_.

Rick thinks under different circumstances he would have stayed Michonne's hand. The woman's sword was too quick, and far too clean, for a man as vicious as Philip Blake.

His cheekbone throbs with the phantom impact of Blake's fists. He takes a breath and pauses, letting his good eye slip shut. He finds it there, in the hot, sticky Georgia heat, with gunfire and boiling blood: the flash of hatred in the Governor's eyes was the same one Rick saw staring back in the mirror from time to time. It was there with despair, and hope, and a gut-rotting fear. Was he so different from the Governor? He'd like to think so, but there's a kernel of doubt in his heart that is slowly turning black with every passing thought. He'd do anything for his family. He has done _everything_ for his family. And still, he has nothing.

"Dad."

Carl's voice brings Rick back to the present, and he opens his eyes and sees the rifle in the young man's hands.

"Keep moving," Rick mutters again.

It's the only thing that makes sense right now.

* * *

It gets dark quick in the trees. Rick looks up, wondering where the sky is, and where the stars went, and all he sees is black, and shadowed leaves. Carl leads him on, trailing along the river, but it's dangerous. They need to get off the trail, Carl insists. They need to get off the ground. There are twelve bullets between them, and walkers all around. The pain in his face is making it hard to concentrate on anything. The pain in his leg is a ghost, coming back to shock him when he thinks it's finally gone.

"Dad."

The word is starting to lose its meaning, Rick thinks. He shakes his head numbly. "Don't," me mumbles. "Don't call me that."

Carl's face is tight with confusion, and he chalks his father's ramblings up to the delirium brought on by his beating, and the blood loss. "Sure, okay," Carl agrees, if only to keep his father from wasting energy arguing. Still, he wraps his fingers around his father's elbow and pulls him up the rising ground, while his brain struggles to remember the maps of the area he's poured over at night. There's a water shed somewhere close by, just west of them, something that regulates the flow of the river when it rises with the spring rains, and it's their best bet.

Rick doesn't know where he's being led anymore. He used to believe he had an idea, a goal, something to work towards. He lets Carl drag him along, and he stumbles in the dark, away from the clawing hands of walkers, and sometimes, Rick just wants to lean in, to give up, and to let them have him.

Then, his leg twists painfully, and he grits his teeth against the shocking burn that pulses up his limb and into his hip. If he can feel the pain, he's still alive, or doing a damn fine impression of it. Carl hustles him along, until they come to a small, concrete structure, no more than five by five long and wide, but at least seven feet tall. The lock has been busted off, and Rick watches as Carl noses the barrel of his gun inside, and flicks his flashlight on. It is dank and dark, but it's empty, and when the beam of light from Carl's torch lands on rusted rebar resting inside of the doorway, the younger man nods to himself, and shoves Rick inside. Carl follows, and wedges the door shut, barricading them in.

"Not much better off in here," Rick chuckles darkly. He leans against the wall, hands moving to the wound on his thigh. His head is fuzzy.

Carl ignores him and moves to the wall opposite the door. There is some struggling and the sound of metal being pried open, or apart, and then he comes back with a glorious white, metal box, complete with a red cross on the top. His dad – _Rick_, he resolves, glancing into the older man's one good eye as it begins to lose focus – has looked better. The Governor beat him within in an inch of his life, Carl guesses, and so he shoves _Rick_ against the wall and pushes him to sitting.

"Hold this," Carl mutters, placing the Maglite into Rick's hand. When he gets no response, he swiftly looks up to find Rick staring at his empty palms. Carl swears. "You need to _hold_ this, Rick, otherwise I can't see what I'm doing." Flipping open the box, Carl takes stock of the supplies within. His heart sinks at the lack of anything more than some peroxide, a few square pads of gauze, and some blunt-tipped scissors. Sitting back on his knees, Carl takes a moment to just breathe, and he wipes his sweating palms along his jean-clad thighs.

The weight of the multi-tool on his belt makes him sit straight. It wasn't much, but it was better than leaving the bullet lodged in Rick's leg. He pulls the tool out from its carrier, and flips open the blade, staring from the blunted edge of it to where the blood has soaked through on Rick's pants. The maglite is still sitting on Rick's lap and Carl snatches it up, pointing the beam of light to Rick's face.

The light is blinding his one good eye, and it's not doing anything for his headache, either. Jesus, it feels just like that time Shane had drank too much at the school function and had picked a fight with the school superintendant. Rick had broken it up, but in the end, he and his partner had traded haymakers on the baseball diamond.

He laughs then.

Shane's dead.

He'd killed him.

And then Carl had killed him _again_.

Rick groans at the remembrance and hisses as something prods the pain in his leg. "Christ, Hersehl," he mutters thickly as his head rolls back and smacks the wall behind him. "Can't you do anything for the pain?"

Carl worries his lip with his teeth and takes the light from Rick's face. Maybe in the morning, Rick will remember that Hershel is dead. But then Carl's heart squeezes painfully for his baby sister, and he hopes that with the morning light, the old man's death won't be the only thing that Rick remembers.

* * *

This darkness is different than the other times. Through the last fifteen months, Rick has seen shadows build and shift, and never really leave him, but he's dealt with them, always able to see his hands in front of his face.

This darkness is different than all the rest. He can't see _anything_, except for when he closes his one good eye.

What happened to the other?

His arms are heavy as he reaches to touch his face. He pulls his fingers back, startled at first. The thing that is passing off as his face is puffy, and the skin stretched tight, and he can't really find the contours that make out eye and nose and cheek. It's just one big mound of bruised, useless flesh. It doesn't feel like his face at all, but maybe an arm of the ancient, overstuffed sofa in the officers' lounge, or maybe a summer gourd left to rot until winter, or maybe the dead, lifeless flesh of Violet the pig back in the yard.

Did Carl feed the pigs?

He finds his other eye swollen shut.

But was the actual _eye_ still there?

He pauses and his brain scrambles back to the basic field first aid training he'd slugged through every eighteen months. Eye injuries were delicate matters. He'd read about people losing sight from a simple blow to the head. His head feels like rocks. He's certain that's what he's been bashed about with: a sack of rocks.

Will he be able to see when this is all over?

Rick fumbles with his swollen eye as his good one searches the dark of the space he's in.

Maybe he could double back and retrieve that eye-patch.

This, of course, makes him laugh, a burst of sound, high and bright, that suddenly becomes choked and dark and makes his own skin crawl.

It also makes Carl surge awake, and he scrambles for the Maglite and clicks it on. As he looks over Rick, his heart lurches. The older man doesn't look good at all, and he doesn't look like his father, and so thinking of him as Rick, and calling him Rick, all seem the best option at this point. He'll get his father back, he's sure of it, but for now, he needs to make sure that this man survives. And in order to do that, they need to get out of the crypt of a hiding place they've held up in. They need water, and food, and weapons, if not ammunition. With the two of them alone and on foot, the quieter they can be the better.

* * *

It's been two days, though Rick doesn't know it, and doesn't care to know it. All he knows is the darkness of the small cement structure, and the occasional cut of light from the flashlight Carl holds. Once or twice, he thinks he hears a door open, and he swears he sees a slice of daylight spill in, but then it's gone and it's so fucking quiet that all Rick can do is close his one good eye and let things flit through his mind like flashbulbs going off. The pain from his leg is still there, still burning, but it's bearable compared to the thick, heavy lurch of sensation running around his pigskin face. Carl has dressed the wounds as best he can, and Rick's eyebrow itches where it's split open over his damaged eye. He wouldn't let Carl look at that; wouldn't let those careful, long fingers (_Lori's fingers_, a ghost whispers) prod or lift the eyelid. He wants it shut, to shut out what he might see with it. He figures one good eye means he only sees half of what is there, and he thinks this is a good way.

He thinks that this is the only way.

"We need to move," Carl tells him suddenly.

He didn't know Carl was back. He opens his good eye and stares into the young man's face, and nods slowly. "Okay," he agrees.

"The explosion at the prison attracted most of the walkers," Carl explains, hoisting Rick up between him and the wall. He check's for the older man's balance and, satisfied, picks up the bundle of cloth he's tied the remaining first aid supplies in. "I found the feed we were using from the river, where we diverted up to the prison? You need some water. Eventually, we'll need food. But we need to move," Carl reiterates.

Rick nods again. Yes. They need to move.

* * *

"Wait here."

When did he start taking orders from a kid?

Rick watches, his mouth a grim line, as Carl moves from the copse of trees where they've been crouched for more than an hour. Carl had made them stop, made them wait, despite the heat, and the desperate, dry ache in their throats.

"Where are you goin'?" Rick growls, catching the kid by the collar and hauling him back.

Carl shrugs him off and shoots him a narrow gaze that cuts right through Rick. "I'm checkin' for people." He nods towards the rough shack that is just beyond their hiding spot. "I haven't seen anyone go in or out in a while," he explains further. "You?"

Rick gives him a look of disbelief and gestures to his face. "No, Carl, I haven't seen anything." His tone is wry, and he shakes his head, leaning back against the tree.

"Right," Carl sighs. "Just…wait here."

That's all Rick has been doing. Waiting. He hears Carl's footsteps move off through the thick, rotten leaves from last autumn, and he cranes his neck back, watching the sun move through the new, green canopy from the past spring. "Ain't like I got anything better to do," he calls out hoarsely. Carl's already moved off, and Rick chances a glance back over his shoulder as the fingers on his good hand curl around the rusted rebar he lifted from the water shed and has used as a weapon for the last six hours. It's coated with the blood and gore from countless walkers, just like Rick's clothes and beard and swollen face. He turns back to the trees, turns his back on Carl, and waits.

All he's been doing for the last eighteen months is wait.

Wait for what?

For a cure? For a new life? For someone to take their home? The thick taste of defeat rolls over Rick's tongue, and he scrapes his teeth along the muscle and spits as best he can. With a sharp curse, he stands, gritting his teeth at the pain still present in his leg. "Carl," he whispers harshly, turning to where the kid has wandered off.

He sees the dark head, complete with a sheriff's hat, come up, and one pale hand raises to the young face, laying a finger over his lips. He makes a series of gestures and Rick determines that Carl hears _something_ inside.

Rick curses again and moves to where the kid waits. Carl ticks his head towards the bare, wooden wall of the tiny shack, and Rick pauses and listens.

The click of a gun cocking is his only warning, and before he can turn, the cool, solid steel of a shotgun barrel is pressed into the dark, matted hair that curls behind his ear. He freezes, and focuses his good eye on Carl, whose face has closed off, gone cold, as he stares down the threat just behind Rick's shoulder.

"Get up," a man's voice orders him.

Rick huffs and holds his hands to his side, far away from the Python coiled at his hip. "We're just passing through."

The shotgun presses again, the steel now warm from Rick's skin. "That why you've been sittin' an' watchin' my shack for the better part of an hour?"

"He's injured – there, see?" Carl rushes to diffuse a situation he can already see simmering. He points to Rick's leg. "Please. We've been without food for two days. That needs a clean bandage. If you can spare anything…"

"Ain't been feelin so charitable these days. Get movin', 'fore I blow both o'yer asses of the map."

"We're not here to hurt you. We just need a little help, that's all. We aren't looking to stay…"

Carl's voice continues, trying to reason with the gun-toting man, and as he speaks, Rick feels the pressure of the barrel against his ear lessen. He looks to Carl, who is unwavering in his negotiations.

"An I told you," the stranger's voice suddenly comes back. "This is _my_ shack. _My_ land. _My_ supplies."

"Nothin's yours, anymore," Rick suddenly spoke. "Never was. You think you're out here defending it when really all you're doing is waiting out here for someone else to take it."

Rick moves quickly then, his palm catching the handle of the Python, and as he draws it he twists, ignoring the injured leg, and adjusting for his one eye. The hammer rolls back effortlessly, a result of a well cared-for gun, and his tongue runs along his teeth.

The man with the shotgun is surprised, but he tries to hide it behind bravado that withers under the swollen, tight skin of Rick's face, and the heavy steel gaze levied from one good eye. Even so, the stranger tries to buy some time. "You sayin' you're gonna take it?"

"Rick," Carl murmurs, unsure of either man's course of action.

"Haven't given me much of a choice." Rick ignores Carl and stands, still with the Python aimed to strike at a moment's notice.

"_Dad_!" Carl hisses this time, desperate to keep his father on the rails.

Rick smirks at the stranger and tilts his head. "You alone out here?"

"No!" The stranger scrambles. "I…I have people…just west of here, no more than a few hours walk."

"Are you _alone_ out here?" Rick tightens his voice, wanting to know if the man is alone here, in this moment.

He nods hastily. "I…I came up here to gather more supplies. We've hidden caches all over these woods."

"Well," Rick replies with a rueful grin. "This one here is mine now."

"Please, it's where we keep our medicine…"

"_My_ medicine, now," Rick growls. He's tired of sharing, of thinking that things in this world can be shared.

He's tried to live civilly, and that didn't work.

Carl starts at the sound of the Python's _crack_, and his cry is nothing compared to the silence that follows the dead man down.

Rick stands over him, contemplating the bullet hole in the stranger's forehead.

"Shit – _Dad_!"

Rick whirls at the sound of Carl's voice and stares long and hard at the kid. He ignores the use of the term 'Dad' and houses the Python in its holster. "Done waiting. Waiting is for the weak, Carl. You want something in this world, you have to take it."

Carl swallows thickly and says nothing, but his steps are hesitant as he follows behind Rick.

* * *

They don't linger at the shack. Carl watches numbly as Rick ransacks the meager contents, shoving medical supplies and bottled water into a weathered, canvas rucksack he's found stashed behind a wood pile. Quick hands run along all surfaces, searching for all possibilities of hidden ammo, or food, or anything else that will be of use. The painkillers he's discovered in the cache are a thing of beauty, and he swallows three down right away, not even thinking ahead. He's only thinking of now, of this moment, and the next seconds when they will shoulder their booty and push on.

Carl checks their direction, casting a glance up to where the sun sits in the sky. "He said his camp was this way," the kid reminds Rick as they step west.

Rick ignores him. He knows that west heads towards the road and that east is most likely the direction of the dead stranger's people. People steer clear of the road, and for good reason. The road is dangerous. There are _people_ on the road. Walkers aren't the threat, Rick has come to realize. They are pests, nothing more, like horseflies and milkweed. They have one need, and that is flesh. _People_ want everything else that isn't nailed down. And yes, people want your flesh. And your blood.


End file.
